It was September 2023 when I first wrote about the dire state of free speech in Germany in general, and the particular persecution of CJ Hopkins, who, almost unbelievably, is being dragged through German courts for publishing the image above.
A lot has happened to Hopkins since then that readers, in light of the totalitarian “hate” laws being foisted upon us in various European countries, might take interest in: such persecution of anti-establishment views could reasonably be expected to play a part in our political future — in my country, Ireland, and elsewhere.
After all, the laws we are facing are ones which Helen Joyce of the Economist has described as “literally Orwellian” — the same kind of strategically ill-defined “hate-speech” law employed by the Soviet Union and its allies to persecute political dissent. The Irish Independent’s Ian O’Doherty seems to agree. O’Doherty straightforwardly described in The Spectator how this “completely bonkers” bill is “bad law with bad intentions” and how it “will have terrible consequences for Irish democracy and freedom”.
In January 2024, Hopkins was acquitted by a Berlin district court. “Technically, it isn’t all over”, wrote Hopkins at the time, “because the prosecutor has a week to appeal the decision, but, given the circumstances, I doubt he will. He made a total fool of himself in front of a large audience yesterday. I can’t imagine that he will want to do that again”.
The prosecutor — unfortunately for Hopkins, but also for the reputation and integrity of the German justice system — had other plans. “Apparently,” wrote Hopkins, “their plan is to keep putting me on trial until they get a judge who is willing to convict me of something, or to bankrupt me with legal costs. Silly me, for a moment there, I was actually starting to believe this was over”.
His absurd political persecution was covered shortly thereafter by FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. And among many other international outlets, across both mainstream and independent media, it was also covered by Irish journalist, John Mac Ghlionn, for both Sky News Australiaand Discourse, the journal of George Mason University’s Mercatus Centre.
Though mounting international pressure is important, and should continue, of greatest relevance was the appearance of articles about his case in mainstream German outlets.
In September 2024, a German judge who happens to be an expert in the very law Hopkins is being persecuted for violating, Dr Clivia von Dewitz, published an extensive opinion piece about the case in the Berliner Zeitung. Needless to say, Dr von Dewitz did not agree that Hopkins was guilty of disseminating Nazi propaganda and sided strongly with the initial judge’s decision to acquit.
Despite all this, the appeals court have determined that Hopkins, an award winning playwright, author, political satirist and self-described “old lefty”, is now a “hate speech” criminal. And they did this in a special courtroom, often used for highly sensitive terrorism trials, that it is impossible to believe wasn’t selected in order to intimidate Hopkins and whoever else could fit in the tiny space to witness his show trial. Hopkins issued a rousing statement prior to receiving the expected verdict:
At my first trial, I appealed to the judge to stop this game and follow the law. She did that. She needed to publicly insult me and then put on a “Covid” mask to display her allegiance to the “New Normal,” but she acquitted me. She followed the law. And I thanked her. But I will not appeal to this Court. I’m tired of this game. If this Court wanted to follow the law, I wouldn’t be here today. The Court would have dismissed the prosecution’s ridiculous arguments in its motion to overturn the verdict. You didn’t do that. So I’m not going to appeal to this Court for justice. Or expect justice.
Go ahead. Do whatever you feel you need to do to me. Fine me. Send me to prison. Bankrupt me. Whatever. I will not pretend that I am guilty of anything to make your punishment stop. I will not lie for you. I will not obey you because you threaten me, because you have the power to hurt me.
You have that power. I get it. Everyone gets it. The German authorities have the power to punish those who criticize them, who expose their hypocrisy, their lies. We all get the message. But that is not how things work in democratic societies. That is how things work in totalitarian systems. I will not cooperate with that. I refuse to live that way.
Since then, Germany’s largest weekly newspaper, Die Zeit, has published a solid overview of his case.
The irony of his case should be clear: in persecuting a writer who compared totalitarian aspects of today’s German authorities to totalitarian German authorities of the past, they have clearly proven his point. That massive, mainstream outlets like Der Spiegel and Stern, pictured below, have also used similar cover art to Hopkins’ book, with no persecution or terrorist court for them, only makes the fact that this is a power play to crush dissent all the more obvious. The key difference, of course, is that Der Spiegel and Stern used the swastika symbol to criticise people who are against establishment orthodoxy, whereas Hopkins criticised the establishment itself.
